Music virality on social platforms: A literature review

Gabriel P. Oliveira; Ana Paula Couto da Silva; Mirella M. Moro

doi:10.33871/vortex.2025.13.10848

Authors

Gabriel P. Oliveira Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7210-6408
Ana Paula Couto da Silva Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5951-3562
Mirella M. Moro Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0545-2001

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33871/vortex.2025.13.10848

Keywords:

music virality, online social platforms, systematic literature review, hit song science

Abstract

Online social platforms have amplified content virality, including songs that quickly reach millions of users, making music virality a growing research topic in fields such as computing, music, communication, and marketing. Therefore, this article presents a literature review on music virality on social media to understand and summarize existing research on such a topic from a computing perspective. We provide an overview of key dimensions, including temporal evolution, perspectives on virality, links to musical success, data sources, approaches, and methods. Results highlight the central role of platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, the relationship between virality and success, and the use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Overall, this work can be a starting point for research focusing on music virality and its complex dynamics, as it emerges as a relevant topic with connections to the areas of social computing, music information retrieval, and marketing.

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Author Biographies

Gabriel P. Oliveira, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Gabriel P. Oliveira received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, in 2018 and 2021, respectively, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree. He has completed a research stay at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. His research interests include social computing and data science, with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary domains. He is a member of the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Computer Science (CS+X).

Ana Paula Couto da Silva, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Ana Paula Couto da Silva received the Ph.D. degree in computer and systems engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in 2006. She was with IRISA-Rennes, in 2005 and 2007, and a Postdoctoral Researcher with Politecnico di Torino, in 2008, a Visiting Professor, in 2016, and a Visiting Researcher, in 2018.She is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, where she has worked since 2013. She has a Productivity in research scholarship (Bolsa PQ-CNPq) level 2. Her research interests include network science, social computing, and analysis of computer systems and green networking.

Mirella M. Moro, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Mirella M. Moro, PhD, works in the Computer Science Department at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. Her research interests include data-driven research, computing on culture, gender diversity, and education in Computer Science. She is also an advocate for increasing women participation in Computing and Technology and coordinates the Digital Girls Program at the Brazilian Computer Society.

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